Columns and Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts (at night)

Francis Joseph Bruguiere

This image is the final photograph for George Sterling's 1915 poem "The Evanescent City". This poem, commemorative of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with its accompanying illustrations after photographs by Francis Bruguiere, first appeared in Sunset Magazine.

"Columns and Rotundas, Palace of Fine Arts" is the ninth and final illustration for the poem, the final verse, which read: "Only for Beauty's passing shall we trace / The heavenly pathway that her feet had trod; / Only at her departure seek her face - / We that shall find it not this side of God."

This impression is hand colored by the photographer, who then pencil signed and dated it "1916" in the lower left corner of the image. There are no margins on this work.

Architect Bernard Maybeck designed the structures to resemble a Roman ruin - he called the palace "a dream of the past." Like everything else at the fair, the Palace of Fine Arts was built as a temporary structure, constructed of plaster, burlap and chicken wire. It was meant to last less than a year, but the Palace of Fine Arts had touched something in the psyche of San Francisco: It was too beautiful to destroy. So a committee headed by Phoebe Apperson Hearst raised enough money to make sure it survived.

Over the years, however, the building began to crumble. By 1967, it needed rescuing again, and a $2 million state grant and a huge gift from San Francisco philanthropist Walter Johnson made it possible to rebuild the palace in poured concrete.